Read on Twitter
We're encouraged to think as consumers, not workers.
Thinking abt my complicity in feeling more/less OK abt eating *outdoors* while "Line cooks had a 60% increase in mortality associated with the pandemic" regardless of whether we eat inside or outside. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/02/jobs-where-workers-have-the-highest-risk-of-dying-from-covid-study.html
Thinking abt my complicity in feeling more/less OK abt eating *outdoors* while "Line cooks had a 60% increase in mortality associated with the pandemic" regardless of whether we eat inside or outside. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/02/jobs-where-workers-have-the-highest-risk-of-dying-from-covid-study.html
I am writing abt this dynamic a bit in my book. Since 9/11/2001, Americans have been trained like seals by Bush II (& retailers) that the way to address societal pain is to go shopping.
Many ppl mean well, we are trying to keep each other from starving. https://twitter.com/_tikvah/status/1356975961456005125
Many ppl mean well, we are trying to keep each other from starving. https://twitter.com/_tikvah/status/1356975961456005125
Initially, I didn't miss restaurants at all; I MUCH prefer cooking or eating in ppl's homes (which I've missed for a year). Now, I do go to an outdoor cafe 2-3X a week for the social interaction w the waiter. Viral cases are WAY low where I am living, too.
But, still...
But, still...
The safest way to have gotten through this would have been to have:
—Sent as many ppl home w pay as possible
—Fully protected essential food workers, to deliver food in bulk to ppls homes, to cook themselves
—Made ventilated public spaces for ppl to meet w/o food prep
—Sent as many ppl home w pay as possible
—Fully protected essential food workers, to deliver food in bulk to ppls homes, to cook themselves
—Made ventilated public spaces for ppl to meet w/o food prep
It's such a shame, we never figured out Burning Man, Brooklyn Bridge Park style open enclosures in parks. What ppl NEED (socialization is a *need*, not a want, as @JuliaLMarcus reminds me) is connection. Restaurants are our only "public" spaces, so we go to them.
Nothing happens outside the context of material support.
So if we'd sent folx home w $ &/or food deliveries and properly protected & compensated farmers, bulk food prep & delivery, folx could have cooked at home, line cooks spared &—w tents in parks—ppl could still have met
So if we'd sent folx home w $ &/or food deliveries and properly protected & compensated farmers, bulk food prep & delivery, folx could have cooked at home, line cooks spared &—w tents in parks—ppl could still have met
Alas, capitalism makes all of this a non-starter.
My God—look at racial breakdown of increased mortality from COVID in Cali (% = increased mortality)
Latin +36%
Latin food workers +59%
Black +28%
Black Retail workers +36%
Asian 18%
Asian healthcare workers +40%
White +6%
White food workers +16%
Source https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.01.21.21250266v1.full.pdf
Latin +36%
Latin food workers +59%
Black +28%
Black Retail workers +36%
Asian 18%
Asian healthcare workers +40%
White +6%
White food workers +16%
Source https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.01.21.21250266v1.full.pdf
This is sort of the equivalent of what I am thinking abt IRT to the sign up for vaccines. If we passively except what we've been told ("anyone can sign up," "go shopping to beat the terrorist/virus," the same nearly invisible patterns of inequity will repeat.
COVID was a chance to rethink or most deeply held assumptions, to get under the hood of our most entrenched practices. Instead, the drive to "get back to normal" has made existing disparities even worse.
Now considering (ty @alex_abads) which I may have to squeeze into the book (curse you @alex_abads) is how WFH has increased a level of abstraction/alienation, making it harder for us WFH to see conditions of labor which make it possible (& more complicit in subjugation of others)
